Given the growing ubiquity of personal portable computing devices (PPCDs), from laptop computers to smart-phones, and the increasing desire for organizations to support BYOD models and provide means for users to connect these devices into enterprise infrastructure, it seems desirable to provide for the easy methods of allowing PPCDs to take advantage of the large screens and keyboards and other input and output peripheral device infrastructure into which organizations have invested, but still allow this infrastructure to be utilized even when the PPCD is not present.
This invention enables the input and output devices attached to a “docking station” to be operated both when the docking station is attached to a PPCD, but also when the PPCD is not present (either via an embedded SOC computing device or via a connection to a centrally located multi-user primary computing device). For example a PPCD such as a laptop might employ a second large display and a full-sized keyboard and mouse for personal convenience in input and output. This invention provides a system and method whereby that same large screen and full-sized keyboard can be also be utilized for computing (by a multi-user central computer or a SOC embedded computer) even when the laptop is not present.
Desktop computers are expensive and difficult to maintain and generally offer far more computing power than is needed by a single user. The ability to share this computing power by locally connecting extra users to this PC is desirable.
Simultaneous sharing of a single personal computer via a single running instance of the operating system by multiple locally connected users is also known and growing in popularity. Companies such as Userful, Ncomputing, Windows MultiPoint Server 2010, etc. have all successfully commercialized this technology. In these situations several keyboards mice and monitors are locally connected to a single personal computer and groupings of these devices are created such that multiple users can independently operate these groupings. Generally such sharing is achieved by running a single instance of a single operating system that is used to create and regulate the assignment and grouping of devices as they are added or removed from the system.
Connecting multiple input devices (e.g., keyboards and mice) and multiple output devices (e.g., monitors) to a single computer for use by a single user has been a common application for a long period of time. Many computers have connections to support two or more monitors. Typically this is used to create an “Extended desktop” that spans across multiple monitors. The user chooses which monitors to use for a specific task drags windows from one monitor to another as needed. With the advent of USB keyboards and mice it is easy to connect two or more keyboards to a computer.
The current invention addresses this situation.